Report on conducted activities in 2026

The University of Nairobi held the 2nd Regional Conference on Women, Children and Nature Rights in Environmental Governance.

In July the Zimbabwean WCNREG team organized a two day workshop at the University of Zimbabwe:

The Reclaiming Earth, Reclaiming Power: Dialogues on Women, Children and Nature's Rights in Environmental Governance

The workshop presented research centered on themesof Access to Justice, The Environment, Women, Children and the Law, Theories for Change in Environmental Justice, Resilience: Centering People, Community and Environmental Wellbeing, Power and the pursuit of agency in environmental governance and on the Empowered systems for Environmental Governance. Fifteen authors presented their abstracts under the themes and received expert peer review feedback, editorial guidance and recommendations with the aim of strengthening the papers submission for chapters of the forthcoming edited volume onReclaiming Earth, Reclaiming Power: Dialogues on Women, Children, and Nature's Rights in Environmental Governance

The report is found here. 

Anne Hellum from UoO and Ncgime Mweso from University of Malawi participated in AIDAs World Water Law Congress 24 – 26 June in Oslo

Anne Hellum was the Convenor of "Plenary Session 2: Plural Water Rights and Food Security of Disadvantaged Groups in the Context of Climate Change".

Ncgime Mweso presented the paper “Reconciling Hydrologic Change, Water Use, and Biodiversity Protection: Gendered Dimensions of Fisheries Governance in Malawi”. 

• Nkatha Kaberi and Patricia Kameri Mbote published the article “Just transition through the lens of women, children and nature rights in Kenya”, in Environmental Law Review 1–11. DOI: 10.1177/14614529261419314.

The article examines the concept ‘just transition’ through the lens of women’s, children’s, and nature’s rights. It argues that while Kenya has a robust legislative and institutional framework governing just transition, implementation of just transition interventions remains a challenge because the law in the books continues to be at variance with the laws in action and the lived realities of Women, Children, and Nature rights in the Kenyan socio-political context. The paper unmasks the assumptions inherent in just transition discourses and provides recommendations on how gender, child, and ecological justice can be part of the green transformation in Kenya. The paper concludes that strengthening data, research, participatory monitoring, and policy coherence is important in ensuring that the transition is just and sustainable.

• Lead article in Apollon about North-South cooperation in Women’s law and interview with Dr. Nkatha Kabira and professor Anne Hellum in the event of the 50 year anniversary of Women’s Law at the University of Oslo

https://www.uio.no/forskning/forskningsnytt/apollon/ledere/2026/1-leder.html